Today we're turning our blog over to Everplans' Contributing Editor Lauren Thaler Kahn. Lauren is the founder of Punchwell Press, an editorial-driven marketing company based in San Francisco. Lauren's mother died in 2010 of pancreatic cancer, and her father died from complications associated with cancer when she was a baby. She blogs about her experience at My Infinity Game.

In today's McSweeney's Internet Tendency (a daily humor site) there's a short piece by Camille Campbell called #Eulogy. It's a fictional eulogy with a darkly funny punch line (which we won't spoil for you here). Though McSweeney's Internet Tendency is a humor site and the piece is obviously funny, #Eulogy also offers an uncomfortably insightful take on modern relationships, online personas, and online memorialization.

In light of the recent changes t​o the tax code, today we're turning our blog over to Victor Adefuye, a lawyer and financial planner, to h​elp us better understand what exactly changed in te​rms of the estate tax and related estate planning taxes in the fiscal cliff compromise.

The fiscal cliff deal this week impacted tax rates in a range of areas, including in terms of the estate tax (aka the inheritance tax, aka the death tax). The short story: the estate tax rate will climb from 35% to 40%, with the exemption amount holding at $5 million (adjusted for inflation, which equals about $5,120,000).

In the coming days we'll be exploring this topic in more depth, explaining what was at stake in the negotiations and the implications for the agreement that was reached. So stay tuned.